Trio Zimmermann - Beethoven: String Trios Op.9 (2011) [SACD]

For their second release on BIS the Trio Zimmermann has chosen to record Beethoven’s String Trios Op.9 – a set of three that the composer himself upon their completion described as ‘la meilleure de mes oeuvres’ – the finest of his works. He composed them in 1796-98, after two earlier contributions to the genre which both clearly followed in the footsteps of Mozart’s great Divertimento K563. With their concentrated sonority, intense drama and striking formal disposition, the Op.9 trios mark the highlight as well as the end of Beethoven’s production for string trio, before he went on to compose quartets instead.

But they cannot be regarded as merely a preparation for taking on that prestigious genre; to quote the composer’s biographers in Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, ‘none of the earlier works can compare with these trios in terms of beauty and novelty of invention, tasteful execution, treatment of the instruments and so on; overall, they even surpass the quartets that appeared shortly afterwards.’